


i'd fly the river to the one i love

by mythbusterposey



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Luke Skywalker Is Rey's Father
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 15:32:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5631688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythbusterposey/pseuds/mythbusterposey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"As the ocean is never full of water, so is the heart never full of love." // Unknown</p>
<p>How Rey confronts sleep and her memories. Or, Where The Ocean Comes From</p>
<p>Title from Fare Thee Well by Oscar Isaac</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rey

Rey's had memory problems since she was a child. It's like her past was moving away from her the faster her future arrived. Her memory was only relative to where she was in life. She doesn't surrender herself to daydreaming often, because her reality just seems to itch more abrasively. (Or is that the sand?)

It's hard not to let her mind wander when she is awake at night, desperate to sleep, agonizingly alone and scared of so many things. Tears she spites for wasting the water she fought to drink slide down her face when the ache in her chest howls to rival the winds outside her durasteel coffin of a home. 

What with Jakku being a literal desert wasteland, the people who speak a language she recognizes are few and far between. And of those who actually want to speak with her, the number is so depressingly low that she goes weeks without speaking a word to anybody.

But on certain nights she does allow herself to dream. She doesn't know how her imagination got so vivid as to imagine an ocean, calm and vast, with a blue-grey sky above, sea-birds flying alongside one another in a companionship she's never quite experienced. She can feel grass beneath her legs and hands, lush and green. The weather is different every time. She experiences rain in her dream, fog, frigid cold, watches a distant lightning storm dueling with the sea. She doesn't mind the sun in her dreams. It's more comfortable than the unforgiving assault of two stars that dried out Jakku a long time ago. She feels safe in her dreams of the ocean. Serenity not even the deathly quiet desert can offer.

She wakes each morning with an increased and increasing sense of longing, missing something (someone? Someplace?) she can't put a name to.

She doesn't let herself think about the ocean in the daytime. Well, she tries not to. On the days where Unkar Plott shortchanges her with whatever portions he's 'gifted' her, she finds her anxiety and tension and panic rising in the back of her throat like bile. Before her hands start to shake with fear, her mind supplies images of the ocean again, the feeling of soft wet grass after a light rain against her palms, warmth of a gentle sun, strange rock formations balancing impossibly. And her apprehension falls away to calm. It infuriates Unkar Plott that he can almost never get a rise out of her. The blobbish man is stupid to think that she would jeopardize her way of living just to get a word in.

As the sun cycles go past, as the notches on her wall grow in quantity, she starts to question the ocean in her dreams. The island. The feeling of comfort and rest and peace that lives on it. She starts poking around in her dreams. It's strange but something won't let her look around where she wants. Someone. She knows it's a someone.

The realization she's not alone in her dreams has her starving herself from sleep. Who is with her?

One day she finally gives herself over to sleep, suspended high above the ground in one of the Super Star Destroyers. She's balanced impeccably on the remains of a shield generator. Her eyes drift shut as her head comes to rest on the hatch door.

The ocean is back, but the sea and sky are stormy. Filled with anger and worry. The grass is muddy and soaked. Her hands slip through it as she stands. She can feel the presence of someone else near her.

"Who are you?" She asks insistently.

"Rey, why are you asleep?" They ask, a low voice, insistent and filled with concern. "You shouldn't be sleeping where you are."

"How do you know where I am?"

"I'm your father. I always know where you are."

The sea seems to still, vicious waves stopped mid-crash against the island. The clouds and the rain are all frozen.

Rey can only make out weathered blue eyes before the other person says urgently, "Rey! Watch out!"

Her center of gravity wakes her from her strange dream, and she realizes she's holding onto the generator she'd been sleeping on by only a hand, and she's dangling free below it. She makes a noise of confused panic. The ocean doesn't fill her mind again, but an overwhelming sense of focus does. She looks around quickly, trying to rid the strain on her arm as fast as possible without falling to her death.

Never afraid of heights, she looks down. Yeah she would die from a drop at this height. Maybe she could— she'd have to time it right— and her strength is almost gone in her arm so she has to move fast— but she manages to swing herself back and forth before shifting her hips and launching herself up and around. She doesn't know how she did it, but she's mounted the generator once more. "That was physically impossible." She whispers to the quiet cavern. Sweat is pouring into her mask. Her mind is silent, the words in her dream fading fast.

She gets herself onto solid ground as fast as she can, but her knees are still shaking for hours.

The picture of those blue, blue eyes are burned into her brain.

She doesn't see those eyes again for quite a long time.


	2. Luke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea...we are going back from whence we came." // John F. Kennedy
> 
> Luke deals with loss and hiding. Or, When The Force Works In Mysterious Ways.
> 
> Title from Fare Thee Well by Oscar Isaac

Luke would practice sending thoughts to Leia first. They'd show up to her just as feelings, confusion, hurt, hope, joy. Leia had told him that at her and Han's wedding, she had felt exceptional joy, like there was two of her feeling so happy. The way she had worded it so precisely had urged Luke to continue his Jedi training with the guidance of his father, Ben, and Yoda. They were all pleased at his ability to take on such a difficult Jedi skill so early in his training.

The moment he knew he was going to lose Rey, Leia had called him on her holocom because she was worried. When he'd brushed it off and asked why, she'd told him that most of the people close to him had suddenly gotten a deep feeling of despair. Han had caught it as well, a non-Force user. He'd gone and picked up Ben and hadn't put him down for hours.

Luke decided he needed to get a few star systems between him and his sister. No one was supposed to know about Rey. If Leia knew, she would never let him leave her where he'd planned. His father had grown up on a desert planet, and so had he. But it'd be too obvious for him to leave Rey on Tatooine. Leia would know all about it the second he entered the atmosphere. So he'd told her that when Ben was old enough, to send him to the planet he's training the new Jedi at.

He ached for his daughter every day, longing and sadness filling his heart. He had to meditate on his focus to conceal himself from his padawans. Ben and Yoda said they'd watch over Rey as she grew, and they'd protect her. Luke couldn't rejoice more in that knowledge. He found himself "checking in" on her once in awhile, though. He misses her every day. That's what he says to himself. There are no words to describe what he truly feels. His father tries to console him but Luke is too frustrated to find any comfort in his words.

He starts to feel wisps of raw emotion late at night. Loneliness. Fear. Hunger. They're from Rey. He knows this in his soul. What has he done? He's left her all alone on some planet and he's living in exile.

The massacre plays in his head relentlessly. The sadness in his heart is a heartbreaking harmony to his daughter's own suffering. He just cannot do anything about it.

When he feels those emotions crying out to him, he climbs the hill on the island and watches the ocean, thinking of her. He allows himself to meditate now. There are no young padawans to guard his thoughts from. No prying sisters he's left behind. It's just him, holding his daughter's hand, a galaxy between them.

He worries for her constantly. She's always climbing such tall structures. She has to deal with that terrible Unkar Plott. She has her mother's resolve and patience. He was never really patient. He watches her become a young woman, his eyes never leaving the horizon on Ahch-To.

She pokes around in what she thinks are her dreams. She gets close to a manifestation before him. Those fiery dark eyes glow like embers atop his heart. Her mother's eyes.

He feels her getting powerful with the Force. He's bursting with pride at every small step she makes in her progress. When he feels her take hold of a lightsaber he weeps. That's his girl. That's his girl.

He knows it's not going to be long after that he should be expecting a visit. Still, he masks his presence from her while she's climbing those dreadful steps. She needs to make her way to him, to the place he's put in her dreams.

And when she does, he looks at her and hardly recognizes her face. But he knows those eyes. And he knows her presence in the Force. And he knows that her arm outstretched to him means more than just one thing.

But most of all, it means "I have finally found you".


End file.
